Archive for July, 2009

Nearly two-thirds of regular internet users across the world have joined a social networking site, according to new research from Universal McCann. Some 85% of Russians online belong to a social network, compared to 64% Brits, 59% in the US and Spain, 50% in France and 47% in Germany. China has the largest social networking audience across the globe with 111.8m people.

Twitter has launched a new service Twitter 101 to help businesses make the most of its product. It includes case studies from brands like Dell, which has 80 branded accounts on Twitter and said it had generated $3m in sales using the microblogging technology. Twitter is also launching a new home page to “better show who we are” to companies and consumers.

MySpace will be repositioned as an entertainment destination by News Corp executives keen to compete more effectively with Facebook. News Corp digital head Jonathan Miller said he wanted to expand the videogame platform on the social networking site so that MySpace becomes a place for people to meet and play games together. In April MySpace had less than 125m users, compared to Facebook’s 307m, according to comScore.

ITV will be offloading Friends Reunited at a massive 90% discount to the price the TV broadcaster spent acquiring the social network four years ago. Private equity firm Oakley Capital has offered just £15m for the business, which cost ITV £175m.

One third of UK consumers aged 16-35 years-old regularly use their mobiles to access social networks. The research from CCS Insight reported that the number of men using handsets to access social networks was double that of women. From the total number of mobile networkers, 90% used Facebook compared to 14% using Twitter. Apple iPhone users were unsurprisingly most likely to use mobile services with 70% saying they often used search engines, email and social networks on their smartphones.

Google is focusing on expanding its business in India, trying to promote its services to advertisers, agencies and consumers in the country. It’s likely that mobile will be a crucial channel for Google in this market as many consumers own phones rather than PCs. Last year Google launched a range of bespoke tools including search systems based on text and voice messages on their mobile. It also promoted its services with a Google bus travelling around the country to educate potential web users about the medium.

Over 70% of Americans discuss opinions of brands on social networks, but only 38% use this medium to discover the views of others on brands, according to research from Razorfish. However just 2% of those surveyed said they discussed brands every day, while 8% said it happened ‘every few days, 19% discussed brands every few weeks, compared with 42% every few months and 29% who never did so. Nearly 30% of participants said they had linked to a brand on a social media site.

A hacker has leaked Twitter documents which reveal that the microblogging site has projected revenues of $140m by end of 2010 in a growth plan which will see user numbers mushroom to one billion within four years. The document, dated February 2009, said that Twitter expected its first revenue to be $400,000, in the third quarter of this year, followed by $4 million in Q4 and $140 million by the end of next year. By the end of 2013, Twitter hoped to have signed up one billion users, post $1.54 billion in revenue, employ 5,200 people and make $111 million in net earnings

In a landmark ruling, Google is not liable for defamatory comments that appear in news articles, blogs and forums in its search results. The judgement in the high court in London ruled that Google was a facilitator and not a publisher of the content. This is obviously a welcome result for search engines as it reinforces the principle that they aren’t responsible for content on third-party websites.

Russian investment firm, Digital Sky Technologies, is extending its stake in Facebook, valuing the social networking firm at $10bn. The firm will buy up to $100m worth of shares from Facebook’s employees at around $14.77 per share. This follows its purchase of $200m worth of preferred shares in May. If its $100m offer is fully paid out, the Russian firm will own a 3.5% stake in Facebook.